


I Will Keep You Safe

by lionessvalenti



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bathing, Disturbing Themes, Family, Friendship, M/M, Regulus Black Lives, Sharing a Bed, Sibling Incest, Trick or Treat: Chocolate Box, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-22 03:56:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12472940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionessvalenti/pseuds/lionessvalenti
Summary: When Sirius and Remus go to Grimmauld Place to clear it out for Order, they find that someone is already living there.





	I Will Keep You Safe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [havisham](https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/gifts).



Sirius hadn't known what he was going to find in 12 Grimmauld Place when he and Remus went to open it up for the Order. No one had been in there since his mother's death, and it had been even longer since Sirius himself had stepped foot in his wretched childhood home.

He expected the thick layer of dust covering every surface, and the scent of rotting wood and mold that filled each room with varying degrees of intensity. The screaming, tortured portrait of his mother in the front hall had been unexpected, but not entirely surprising.

"Oh, motherfucker," Sirius muttered as he stared up at her. She clawed at her face with her long nails, revealing the whites of her bloodshot eyes, as she screamed slurs at the both of them.

Remus pushed up his sleeves, wand tucked between his thumb and hand as he did. "Shall I?"

"Please."

While Remus worked to shut her up, and perhaps destroy the portrait in a dazzling fire, Sirius crept upstairs.

The stairwell was dark, and while Sirius had his wand extended, he did not light it. He knew these walls far too well, and after all his years in Azkaban, he knew darkness as a friend.

His intention had been to scope out his old room. He wasn't sure what he had left there, certainly nothing of consequence, but it would be good to return to his one safe haven. He'd barred Kreacher (was the nasty house elf even still alive or was his corpse mummified beneath his parents' bed?) from the room by the time he was ten, and bewitched the locks to only respond to him when he was thirteen.

His gaze, however, was drawn to a single source of light in the hall: a flickering candle shining from the crack beneath the door to Regulus' room. All thoughts of his own room vanished as he was drawn to the light.

Kreacher, he thought grimly. Of course. The house elf had loved his Death Eater brother as much as he served Walburga with blind devotion.

Sirius swung open the door, bracing for Kreacher's verbal lashing, or perhaps an attack from cursed objects, it was the smell hit him first. The stink of body odor, urine, and the unmistakable smell of the dying. Sirius had become all too familiar with the latter.

The room remained quite like Sirius had remembered seeing it last. The Slytherin banner and constellation maps decorating the walls, the brass telescope by the window, and the oversized chair surrounded by stacks of books, right down to a sleeping form in the bed.

"Regulus?" Sirius gasped.

The form in the bed shifted and groaned. "Kreacher?"

"No," Sirius replied. He took a step into the room, despite his every instinct telling him not to. "Regulus, are you alive?"

The blankets pushed back, revealing the deathly pale, gaunt face of Regulus. His hair was long, unwashed, and matted. His eyes seemed huge, bulging from their skeletal frame, and when he opened his mouth, he revealed several missing teeth, and others black with rot. "More alive than I've any right to be."

Sirius had always hated his brother, the arrogant Slytherin git, who'd gone off to follow Voldemort at his first chance. He hadn't mourned when he heard of Regulus' death. It was simply a matter of fact, a consequence of his actions. Sirius could have put this shell of his brother out of his misery and no one would have blamed him.

However, Sirius barged into the room and knelt by the bed. The smell here was stronger, almost unbearable. In fact, to anyone who hadn't spent the latter half of their life in Azkaban, it would have made them sick. "They said you died."

"I tried," Regulus said. He studied Sirius' face and almost smiled. "You look like shit, brother."

"You smell of shit," Sirius replied without hesitation. It was hardly an insult, due to its truth. "Did Kreacher do this to you?"

Regulus shook his head. "He's done his best. He's old. He can't care for me like he used to."

"Sirius?" Remus called. A moment later, he was standing in the doorway, staring at the scene in front of him. "Merlin's beard."

"Remus, I'm sure you remember Regulus," Sirius said. He stared at his friend, hoping that Remus wouldn't immediately call for the end of Regulus. He may be a Death Eater, but he was frail, and... they were brothers.

Remus raised his wand, pointing it at nothing in particular. "Scourgify!" The smell in the room cleared -- some. It would take more than one cleaning spell to erase the years of decay the room had suffered.

"Thank you," Sirius said.

"I have a particularly sensitive sense of smell," Remus replied, though he had to have known Sirius' thanks were for more than the spell. He stepped into the room and stood at the end of the bed. "What are you going to do? Turn him over?"

"No!" Regulus tried to sit up, but mostly the blankets flailed around him. They fell to his waist, revealing dry, flaky skin stretched over bone, showing every rib down his front, from the concave of his chest to his shrunken stomach. Bedsores, both fresh and the scars of old, lined in his sides. One looked particularly nasty and infected.

"The Dark Lord will do more than kill me. He'll destroy me slowly. He'll start from the inside and work his way out." Regulus held out his arm to reveal the outline of the Dark Mark. "It burns. Every day, it burns me. Kill me now, but do not turn me over."

"I meant to Dumbledore," Remus said softly. "Or to St. Mungo's."

Regulus' head fell back against the pillow, exhausted from his outburst. "Kill me now," he repeated through his chapped lips. His eyes closed and like that, he was asleep.

Sirius pulled the blanket back over Regulus' bare torso and stood up straight. "I want to help him."

Remus didn't appear shocked, or even surprised. Perhaps he recognized what Sirius had yet to, but would in the days that followed. Both Black brothers had their lives taken from them. A mess of his own making for Regulus, sure, but confined to this bed was no less a prison than Azkaban. To save himself, Sirius would have to save Regulus as well.

* * *

Over the next twenty-four hours, Sirius and Remus cleaned the most important rooms for that moment: Regulus' room, the loo, and Sirius' room, which was shockingly the least dirty of the three.

Remus informed the Order that the house was currently uninhabitable. He had to fight to keep Molly Weasley away, after she insisted that she'd rather clean than keep a Hippogriff in her garden. Though, according to Fred and George, Buckbeak was having a lovely time at the Burrow.

"It's ours for now," he told Sirius. "I don't know how long this can be kept secret, though."

"Me either," Sirius agreed. He'd spent the day manually scrubbing out the bath when magic simply wasn't doing the trick, as cleaning spells were not his strength. He also liked to imagine the horror on his mother's face if she knew that a descendent of the noble house of Black was doing _manual labor_ in her home instead of using magic.

"Have you thought about what you're going to do with Regulus?"

"He needs to be healthier before we can do anything. He can't even sit up to eat. He can't handle anything besides cold broth. I don't know what that good for nothing house elf has been doing to keep him alive all these years."

"But he _has_ kept him alive," Remus gently reminded.

Sirius scowled. "Have you see his back? His backside? The bedsores are atrocious. I did what I could to heal them, but what he needs are some strong potions. Stronger than you or I could brew in the kitchen."

Remus leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms casually over the front of his threadbare robes. "Are you suggesting we let Severus in on our secret?"

"God, no." Sirius sneered at the mere idea.

"I didn't think so," Remus replied. "That's why when I went to the shop at the corner, the Muggle one. I picked up some supplies there. They aren't perfect, but it's better than nothing. Ointments, bandages, and something called protein shakes. From what I read on the label, they should put some weight on him while he still can't quite eat."

Sirius stared up at Remus with wonder. "You're an unbelievably good friend."

"Yes, I know." He smiled and pushed off from the doorframe. "Has he said anything? About what happened?"

"No, nothing. He faded in and out of awareness. Mostly he just begs me to kill him." Sirius sat upright and looked at the tub. It would never quite gleam the way it used to, but it was free of dirt and mold. "Do you think we could get him in here for a bath? If we used a levitation spell? I could bathe him, and you could do something about those sheets."

Remus nodded. "If we're gentle. We can't wait any longer. And we have to do something about his teeth."

Sirius bared his own teeth. They were no longer yellowed and infected from years in Azkaban. "I know a spell for that."

It took both of them carefully guiding Regulus' prone body to the washroom and carefully depositing him into tub. It was already filled halfway with barely warmed water. If Regulus' skin was anything like the inside of his mouth, anything more would cause him pain.

"Why are you doing this?" Regulus asked. In the brighter light of the loo, Sirius could see a slight film over Regulus' eyes.

"Because you smell," Sirius said, soaping up a clean washcloth.

"No." Regulus coughed. It was dry and raspy. "Why are you helping me? You should have killed me when you saw me."

Sirius began washing Regulus, starting at his neck. "You're helpless. If I killed you in this condition, unable to defend yourself, I'd be no better than Voldemort."

Regulus shuddered at the name.

"How did this happen?" Sirius began working down Regulus' back, his spinal cord pulling at the dry, taut skin, littered with bedsores.

Regulus looked down at the water. It was already shiny with an oily film. "I tried to end him. I tried to destroy him. I failed. It should have killed me, but I came back here. Kreacher kept me alive."

"And little else."

"I should be dead," Regulus agreed.

Sirius finished the bath in silence. He had to clear and refill the water three times. For all that Kreacher kept Regulus alive, he didn't do any of the labor that went into making that life worth living. Leaving Regulus naked in his own filth on moldy bedsheets, feeding him cups of water and stale bread. No wonder Regulus looked like a skeleton. He was wasting away. And Sirius never would have been the wiser. If not for the Order, he never would have come back.

After Sirius dressed as many of the bedsores as he could with the supplies Remus had brought, he touched the matted nest of Regulus' hair and frowned. "We may have to shave this and start over. Do you think you can stand? I can help you. Or levitate you back to bed."

Regulus considered the question, and then nodded. "Help me stand."

Sirius wrapped his arms around his brother's naked body and lifted him out of the tub. Sirius still wasn't very strong after the years in prison, but Regulus weighed nothing. His legs shook with what little weight he put on them, but he leaned against Sirius, and that seemed to steady him.

They walked slowly to the bedroom. It took forever, with Regulus' small tired steps, and Sirius carrying the weight of them both, but it was worth it when Regulus let out a small sigh as he settled into the clean sheets Remus had put on his bed. "Thank you."

"We'll do this again tomorrow," Sirius said. "You rest now."

* * *

It had been a week since Sirius and Remus had arrived at 12 Grimmuald Place. Every day, Regulus looked better than the day before. His skin was brighter from regular cleaning and better nutrition. He grew stronger. His steps, still aided by Sirius, were taken with more confidence, and at a faster pace. He still suggested Sirius kill him, but less often.

Some things were going to have to get worse before they became better. Sirius had carefully sheared away all of the hair on Regulus' head. He looked smaller, iller, and suddenly very old, but not as if he had rats living on his head. It was an improvement, and eventually, his hair would grow back. His teeth, however, Sirius and Remus had carefully removed all of them. They were all past saving. It didn't help in preventing Regulus from looking like a small elderly man.

"Is there a magic cure for growing teeth from nothing?" Sirius asked. "Isn't there a bone growing potion?"

Remus shrugged. "We'd have to go to a healer, and it isn't safe to take him anywhere in the wizarding world right now. There are Muggle solutions. And we do know dentists who would accept galleons as payment. And may do things... quietly."

"Who?"

"What's a dentist?" Regulus asked at the same time.

"Hermione Granger's parents," Remus said. He turned to Regulus and began explaining dentists, while Sirius tried to imagine explaining to a couple of Muggles he'd never met that he knew their daughter, but they would have to keep this interaction secret from her.

If Hermione knew, then Harry would know. Sirius got a strange pit of anxiety in his stomach when he thought about explaining to Harry why he was caring for his Death Eater brother. Harry was still young. When he thought of good and evil, he saw them in black and white, with no grey area.

"It will have to wait until you're stronger anyway," Sirius said. He hesitated, knowing his next statement would be loaded. "Even if you... would you want to go to Muggles?"

Regulus paused, considering. He took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. "I've seen myself in the mirror. If going to this den-tist is the only option, then I'd like to."

Classic Black family vanity could solve even the deepest of prejudices, it seemed.

That evening, after Sirius helped Regulus with his bath, he helped his brother back to his bed. Instead of leaving him there to sleep, Sirius sat down next to him.

"We can't keep this up much longer. We'll have to tell someone. I offered this place up for a headquarters, and I can't keep them out forever." Sirius took Regulus' hand. He hadn't held his brother's hand since they were children, before either of them ever went to Hogwarts. There was a photo somewhere, both of them as children in dress robes, maybe at a wedding, holding hands. 

"What was Azkaban like?" Regulus asked.

Sirius stiffened. "What? Why?"

"That's where they send Death Eaters."

"You've already been through hell. You don't need to go through it twice." Sirius released Regulus' hand. He paused, and then stretched out next to his brother on the bed. The bed wasn't large, but they were both so thin, they fit together. "No matter what happens, I'm going to keep you safe."

If Regulus thought there was something strange about Sirius sharing his bed, he didn't say. He turned his head to face Sirius. This close, he looked even thinner, his eyes larger. "I knew you were innocent. When I heard. You loved James Potter more than anything. He was your real brother."

Sirius didn't say anything. It wasn't untrue. James had been his brother, and he had ignored Regulus. If he had paid more attention to his brother, not let rivalry get in their way, would things have been different? Would Regulus have been different?

"They knew about me." Regulus closed his eyes. "It couldn't have helped you."

"They came at me, judge, jury, and executioner," Sirius said. He rested his hand along the side of Regulus' face. "It didn't matter who you were."

"Am. Who I am." Regulus opened his eyes and frowned. "There's only one way to stop being a Death Eater. I'm not there yet."

Sirius caressed Regulus cheek with his thumb. "You're not going to die. I'm not going to let that happen. Or haven't I made that clear?" He tilted his face closer and brushed his mouth against Regulus'.

Regulus' eyes widened. He placed one frail hand at Sirius' neck. "Stay?"

He thought briefly of what Remus would say, but Sirius nodded. Their secret wouldn't stay a secret for much longer, and there was no telling what was next for Regulus. Sirius needed another secret instead.

* * *

"I've told Dumbledore everything," Remus said. He sat next to Sirius on the couch in the living room. It had been given a preliminary cleaning, and therefore wasn't overly dusty, but spiders still probably lurked behind the curtains.

"Everything?" Sirius asked.

"Everything... of pertinence," Remus replied.

Sirius let out a slow sigh. "And?"

"He agrees that keeping Regulus under our care is the best course of action. Whatever it is that put Regulus in the care of Kreacher was against Voldemort, before he fell. Putting it out there that Regulus is alive would put all of us at risk against the current Death Eaters. And since he was already here, he's under the protection of the Fidelius Charm, so he must stay."

"But the others are still coming," Sirius said.

Remus nodded. "Molly and Arthur will be here with their children by tomorrow, Buckbeak in tow. The Order is convening. Everyone will be here soon, Harry included. Explanations will have to be made, and I will have your back for all of them."

Sirius rested his head on Remus' shoulder. "Thank you, Moony."

"As for... everything else--"

"I'm simply sleeping in his room," Sirius said, sitting upright. It wasn't a lie. Regulus was far too weak for anything else, and Sirius wasn't sure if they _wanted_ anything else. If there _was_ an anything else. "He's been alone a long time. I know what that's like, Remus. It's devastating."

"He's your brother, Sirius. Isn't there any part of you that finds it... unnatural?" The way Remus spoke, it wasn't judgmental, but Sirius couldn't help but feel judged.

"We're adults," Sirius replied. "What difference does it make?"

"He's been alone in this house for going on thirteen years with only Kreacher for company. He'd latch onto anyone giving him comfort."

"And I spent twelve years in Azkaban! Do I strike you as too weak to know what I'm doing?"

Remus sighed. "No. And I understand. You've both been alone. Maybe it doesn't matter. I just want to be sure you're going into this of sound mind, Sirius. And to know that perhaps he's not. But don't worry, I'll keep your secrets. What's one more?"

Guilt churned in Sirius' stomach for the first time. It wasn't his intention to have Remus lie for him, but that's all he'd asked his friend to do since they'd arrived at Grimmauld Place. Of course. That's what this house did. It brought out the worst in people. Was Remus right? Was his involvement with Regulus the house sucking the last bit of goodness from him?

Remus was still talking. "Perhaps once everyone is here, we can do more for him. Access that bone growing potion for his teeth. I'm sure Molly, once she sees how thin he is, will feed him until he's quite chubby. It could be good for him."

Sirius chuckled. He quite liked the thought of all of that. Regulus well, and walking without aid. Smiling. He couldn't quite remember seeing his brother smile, not even as they were children. It always seemed to him that Regulus, as the prized child, was happy, but was he? Or was he simply filling a void that Sirius had left for him? Ever the Slytherin, taking the opportunity to be the one their parents loved when it was presented to him.

After the evening bath, Sirius told Regulus what was going to happen. That he was going to be safe, and under the protection of the Order.

"But others will be here," Regulus said.

Sirius stood at the end of the bed, his hands in his pockets. "Yes."

"And they know what I've done."

"They know you were a Death Eater. And they know you've done something to gain our loyalty, though you haven't said what. And they know you're my brother."

Regulus placed his hands flat on the bed and tried to push himself up into a sitting position. He strained, his arms too weak to even carry his own weight. Sirius moved around the bed and grabbed Regulus around his bare midriff and helped him. When he went to step back, Regulus grabbed him by the wrist. Sirius could have easily broken free from his brother's weak grasp, but he stayed put.

"Regulus?"

"Take off your robes," Regulus said. "Please."

Sirius then pulled away from Regulus. He stood still for a moment, calculating the request for motives, but he could feel himself already growing hard beneath his clothes. Taking that as a sign of what he wanted, he stripped out of his robes, leaving them on the floor.

Regulus' gaze was drawn to Sirius' erection. "But I'm so ugly," he whispered.

"You look like me," Sirius said, and he climbed into the bed with his brother. Maybe it was the house bringing out the worst in him, but for the first time, he wanted to be close to Regulus. Maybe for once, the house was giving him them both what they needed. Or at least that's what Sirius was going to tell himself.

"You hated me," Regulus said. His hip bone jutted painfully into Sirius' thigh.

"I ignored you," Sirius replied. "I don't know which is worse."

Regulus took Sirius' face in his hands. His fingertips caressed against Sirius' cheeks. "Everything I did, it was my doing. It's not your fault."

"I never said it was my fault." Sirius said, and he kissed Regulus. It wouldn't change anything, but the least they could do is make up for lost time. They'd never been brothers, and perhaps they never would be. But that didn't mean they couldn't be together.

He'd lost twelve years to Azkaban. Regulus had lost even more to this house. They weren't going to lose anymore time.

* * *

When Regulus told Sirius what had happened, why he'd been so ill, and what Voldemort had done, Sirius very nearly cried. He never would have believed his little brother could stand to be a hero. And now, he'd have the chance to finish what he started.

This time, Sirius was going to help him.

This time, he wouldn't have to do it alone.

This time, they would survive.


End file.
